An American woman convicted twice of killing her husband in Hong Kong in a
notorious case dubbed the “milkshake murder” is believed to be seeking
another appeal

Nancy Kissel has been convicted twice of killing her husbandPhoto: Bloomberg

By Leah Hyslop

12:29PM GMT 28 Feb 2012

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Friday that Nancy Kissel had filed an application for leave to appeal against her second conviction last year.

The expatriate, from Michigan, is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of her banker husband Robert in 2003, in a sensational case which saw her allegedly beat him to death with a statuette after feeding him a strawberry milkshake spiked with sedatives.

Kissel’s first appeal for a retrial was granted on the basis that her original trial was unfair, but her grounds for a second appeal are not yet clear – though her husband’s father, Bill Kissel, told SCMP he thought it might be on the basis she had not been properly represented.

"Is there never an end to her machinations?" he said.

The gruesome killing of Mr Kissel, a senior investment banker at Merrill Lynch, and his wife’s subsequent life imprisonment for the crime sent shockwaves through the former British colony of Hong Kong, inspiring several books and a television film.

At her original trial in 2005 Kissel pleaded not guilty to murder, alleging that she had been acting in self-defence against a brutal, career-obsessed husband who sexually and physically abused her, but pleaded guilty of manslaughter during the retrial last March.

Prosecutors argued that she stood to inherit millions of pounds from her wealthy husband and had planned to escape with a electrical technician, who she had been having an affair with in the US, after his death.

Since the killing of Mr Kissel, the couple’s three children have moved back to the US to live with their father’s sister.

Because the 28-day time limit for an appeal has expired, Kissel will be dependent on court permission to go ahead with the appeal.